The Russians Have Already Quietly Pulled Their Money From The West

Earlier today we reported that according to weekly Fed data, a record amount - some $105 billion - in Treasurys had been sold or simply reallocated (which for political reasons is the same thing) from the Fed's custody accounts, bringing the total amount of US paper held at the Fed to a level not seen since December 2012. While China was one of the culprits suggested to have withdrawn the near USD-equivalent paper, a far likelier candidate was Russia, which as is well-known, has had a modest falling out with the West in general, and its financial system in particular. Turns out what Russian official institutions may have done with their Treasurys (and we won't know for sure until June), it was merely the beginning. In fact, as the FT reports, in silent and not so silent preparations for what will be near-certain financial sanctions (which would include account freezes and asset confiscations following this Sunday's Crimean referendum) the snealy Russians, read oligarchs, have already pulled billions from banks in the west thereby essentially making the biggest western gambit - that of going after the wealth of Russia's 0.0001% - moot.

Russian companies are pulling billions out of western banks, fearful that any US sanctions over the Crimean crisis could lead to an asset freeze, according to bankers in Moscow.

Sberbank and VTB, Russia’s giant partly state-owned banks, as well as industrial companies, such as energy group Lukoil, are among those repatriating cash from western lenders with operations in the US. VTB has also cancelled a planned US investor summit next month, according to bankers.

The flight comes as last-ditch diplomatic talks between Russia’s foreign minister and the US secretary of state to resolve the tensions in Ukraine ended without an agreement.

Markets were nervous before Sunday’s Crimea referendum on secession from Ukraine. Traders and businesspeople fear this could spark western sanctions against Russia as early as Monday.

It probably will. What it will also do is force Russia to engage China far more actively in bilateral trade and ultimately to transact using either Rubles or Renminbi, and bypass the dollar. Perhaps even using gold, something which the price of the yellow metal sniffed out this week, pushing itself to 6 month highs. It will also make financial ties between the two commodity-rich nations even closer, while further alienating that "imperialist devil," the US.

Of course, the west thinking like the west, and assuming that all that matters to Russia is the closing level of the Micex, believes that a sufficient plunge in Russian stocks would have been enough to deter Putin. After all, the only thing everyone in the US cares about is if the S&P 500 closed at yet another all time high, right?

What the west didn't realize, as we predicted a month ago, for Putin it is orders of magnitude more important to have the price of commodities, primarily crude and gas, high than seeing the illusion of paper wealth, aka stocks, hitting all time highs. Especially since in Russia an even smaller portion of the population cares about the daily fluctuations of the stock market. As for the oligarchs, if there is someone who will be delighted to see their power, wealth and influence impacted adversely, if only for a short period of time, it is Vladimir Vladimirovich himself, whom the west misjudged massively once more. Not to mention that the general population will be even more delighted, and boost Putin's rating even higher, if these crony billionaires are made to suffer by the west, if only a little.

(Here we would be remiss not to comment on his easy it supposedly is for Obama to freeze the assets of a few corrupt Russian billionaires, and yet the very proud Americans who nearly brought the entire financial system to the brink in 2008, are now richer than ever.)

In the meantime, some of Russia's oligarchs are effectively welcoming the challenge. Bloomberg reports:

Alisher Usmanov, the country’s richest person, controls his most valuable asset, Metalloinvest Holding Co., Russia’s largest iron ore producer, through three subsidiaries, one of which is located in Cyprus, an EU member nation. The 60-year-old also owns a Victorian mansion in London that he bought in 2008 for $70 million, according to a May 18, 2008, Sunday Times newspaper report. He’s lost $1.5 billion since the crisis began, according to the Bloomberg ranking.

“We are concerned with the possible sanctions against Russia but don’t see any dramatic repercussions for our business,” Ivan Streshinsky, CEO at USM Advisors LLC, which manages Usmanov’s assets, including stakes in Megafon OAO and Mail.Ru Group Ltd., said in an interview at Bloomberg’s offices in Moscow today.

“Mail.Ru and Megafon revenue is coming from Russia and people won’t stop making calls and using the Internet,” he said. “Metalloinvest may face closure in European and American markets, but it can re-direct sales to China and other markets.”

Great job, Obama: you just pushed Russia and China even closer by necessity! Furthermore, it should come as no surprise that while Russians were pulling their money from the west, western firms were getting out of Dodgeski.

One senior Moscow banker said 90 per cent of investors were already behaving as if sanctions were in place, adding that this was “prudent exposure management”.

These moves represent the flipside of the more obvious withdrawal of western money from Russian markets that has been evident over the past fortnight.

Traders and bankers said US banks had been particularly heavy sellers of Russian bonds. According to data from the Bank for International Settlements, US banks and asset managers between them have about $75bn of exposure to Russia.

Joseph Dayan, head of markets at BCS, one of Russia’s largest brokers said: “It’s been quite an ugly picture in Russian bonds the last few days and some of it has to do with international banks reducing exposure.”

Although foreign banks have not yet begun cutting credit to Russian companies en masse, bankers said half a dozen live deals to fund some of Russia’s biggest companies were in limbo as lenders waited to see how punitive western sanctions would be.

So the bottom line is that Russia, thinking a few steps ahead, already has withdrawn the bulk of its assets from the West, and why not. Recall that a year ago it was revealed that the same Russians who were supposed to be punished in Cyprus had mostly withdrawn their funds in advance of the bail in: they tend to know what is coming. It was the ordinary Cypriot citizens, who had done nothing wrong, who were most impaired.

And so while the Russian response is already known, we wonder just how true is the inverse: just how prepared is the west, and especially Europe, to exist in a world in which a third of Germany's gas is suddenly cut off? We can't wait to find out early next week.

The EURO is going to be KING, and that is what UKRAINE/SYRIA was all about, ... ZIO- knows the USD is going down,...

CHINA/RUSSIA remain silent about BULLSHI, cuz they know once the USD collapses and US-MIL can't make PAYROLL on the ZIO-MERCENARY army, then the US-MIL becomes paper-tigers, and then the entire world can tell the US "GO FUCK YOURSELF".

"As an adapter to the thinking of men of power, Obama was a quick study. It took him less than half a year as president to subscribe to Dick Cheney’s view on the need for the constant surveillance of all Americans. "

Congrats to all the Captain Obvious posters, who miraculously and correctly deduced that the flight was Hijacked, after the MSM informed us that the 777 engines kept sending out real-time data streams about their multi-parameter conditions (Vital Signs) back to Boeing (in Chicago, US) for 4-5 hours after it was reported missing, and which led many MSM Super-Sleuths to conclude that Foul Play might be at work.Congrats, Sherlock Jr.!:-o

The relevant questions that Captain(s) Unobvious might now ask include:

(1)Why did it take so long for Boeing to come forward with this data?E.g., did they have to reveal it because they could not risk the legal liability and PR damage if this was going to be leaked sooner or later anyway?IOW, the fear of the Snowden effect.

(2)(a) Since when has this technology been Available for in-situ Beta-testing, and (b) since when has it been in Regular use?

(3)Based on question (2), does this mean that Boeing actually has data on other plane crashes that it does not wish to share?It does not take a genius or an overly active imagination in a post-Snowden era, to envision a scenario, where US Agencies (NSA, CIA) wanted to have this information about planes, but did not wish to have the FAA or the Public to know about it.

(4) Given that Expert Pilot skills were required after the hijacking, did the plane not actually land somewhere, and is it not possible (or likely) that the passengers and plane are being “repurposed”?

ACARs has been around since the mid nineties at least. The data it collects is mainly engine data. 2 engine aircraft operators are requried to collect this data on all aircraft that are in the ETOPS (extended operations over water) program as the operators have to show engine reliability to remain in the program. Without this collection the aircraft can only operate less than 60 minutes from a suitable airport, which is problematic for an operator intending to fly people internationally with 2 engine aircraft. The acars also is used by the cockpit crew to send info to operations, get weather updates, check gate delays, etc, etc. I don't see anything nefarious with ACARS data collection and I'm pretty paranoid in most cases.

Hehe yeah but the issue will be in the transportation. You'd need a Russian transporter (Antonov) which can carry a good 250 tonnes; The largest western transporter as far as I know is the Lockheed C5 which with a max capacity of around 120 tonnes would barely make the trip worthwhile.

The shopping carts and fat people are a clever way to divert resources into robotic drone etc manufacturing. Fat people and shopping carts do not require rare earth magnets and expensive ninja trained police and so forth.,

Actually i should qualify that. There are healthy fat people and skinny people. It is the fat and skinny people who are diseased by processed foods who fit the category of being a low threat when armed with a shopping cart not containing rare earth magnets or robotic devices.

I just saw 2 of them in all their 400lb glory at the grocery store...with Life Alerts around their neck...In case they get a mysterious pain that could be life threatening they can call a tax payer ambulance to take them to the tax payer hospital to fix them up and return them back to shoving taxpayer food down their gullet all day...because it's important to keep these Americans happy, healthy,and well fed and even better medicated. Yeah. We are going to kick some butt the next real war we get into.

Exactly why this is so fascinating. We have a bunch of debt-soaked broke-assed countries piling on against the axis of real asset holders in an effort to preserve the petrodollar, and everything the provocateurs do seems to shoot themselves in the foot.

How many countries use the US dollar as their own currency? The dollar is the largest currency union in the world. The goal of the banksters here is seignorage, taking control over all currencies and currency unions in the world so only they benefit from increases and decreases in the money supply. Debt is good. (Gordon Gekko)

Guys. The hegemony/monopoly of the good'ole USA of mother earth will fracture and apparently is fracturing along a major faultline, apparently again along classic East-West geopolitical lines in real terms and with real interests on the planet.

Resource reserves of everything, including water, are being exhausted everywhere all over the northern hemisphere, pollution is soaring, add to that a 4 degree centigrade increase baked in and which is just starting to ramp up.

TPTB are hedging bets and sharing is apparently not on the table right now. This bubble-inflated market, hft-laced, electo-money, attempted dollar-globalization economy is obviously crumbling... mainly because our planet is dying.

Lines are being drawn. Sides are being chosen, often ethnically. They are using real maps, along true hemispheres, with all of us on them. Deciding destinies.

To me, this Crimea shit is a signal that times is running short and not enough is going to go around. Something is coming. Fuck.

you mean the full force of 12%+ unemployed? or you mean the 63% labor participation rate? who's going to be crushed? the middle class? by the full $17 500 000 000 000 debt load? wait, what are we talking about again?

"And so while the Russian response is already known, we wonder just how true is the inverse: just how prepared is the west, and especially Europe, to exist in a world in which a third of Germany's gas is suddenly cut off?"

Because it is well kmown that only Russians are smart and Europeans and Americans are complete morons, right Tyler? Yet somehow, the West is still doing ok (albeit not great). Russia accounts for only 1% of EU's trade (while the EU accounts for 15% of Russia's). I wonder who has the most to lose?

-Germany who is sitting on record level of gas inventory (not even counting its strategic reserves) which would give it sufficient time to find alternative sources for its gas needs (and could also restart its nuclear plants...); or

- Russia (with a GDP growth of 1.5% last year, not quite fantastic, even compared to the West), who would lose immidiately 40% of its revenue...

You want irony? After Zimbabwe's currency collapsed they adopted the US dollar and South African Rand, no relation to Ayn, as their currency in 2009, and in January decided to start using the Chinese Yuan along with a bunch of others - Australian dollars, Indian Rupees and Japanese yen.

Well every saver on earth could pull out the CASH, and the federal reserve would just create FIAT to balance the books.

The BANKS no longer exists to 'save', they only exist to make loans to ENSLAVE.

How long can the FEDRES pull FIAT out of its ass to feed the DEBT economy? Probably a long time.

Is gold skyrocketing?

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People are just preparing for WAR, ... like the article say's the RICH in RUSSIA don't want to see their money do a CYPRUS in the coming grab of CASH by the ZIO ran western banking fuckheads. Grabbed on the pre-text of WAR.

Note its not that they're pulling their USD out of western banks, they're pulling their EURO's out of western banks.

Perfect thank you. I'm also sure that the majority of the world can't wait to trade in ruble and reminbi. The currencies that devalue 30% in a matter of days. I personally can't wait to diversify my portfolio away from the reserve currency USD and go to these two fantastic currencies with so much upside!

Perfect thank you. I'm also sure that the majority of the world can't wait to trade in ruble and reminbi. The currencies that devalue 30% in a matter of days. I personally can't wait to diversify my portfolio away from the reserve currency USD and go to these two fantastic currencies with so much upside!

Yes, and "A Prophet has no honor in his own village". -Jesus of Nazareth.

Nice to see that TD came to the realization of this story, given that I already made the same statement a few hours earlier. See [Exhibit A]: Fri, 03/14/2014 - 16:59 | 4549690

"Besides the not-so-subtle way of saying FU, it could also be the Russian gov and its Oligarchs reducing their US exposure to asset freezes.

IOW, also hedging their bets. Gives them more negotiating power to complement their military moves -- thus increasing their options for a flexible response, and makes it more difficult for the US to front-run them.

Global Stratego."

Clearly, even for all its attempts and pretenses, even ZH is not exactly "Meritocracy" in giving Credit where it is due, but has its "Cliques". In which case, how is having "Cliques" here different from Cliques elsewhere -- including on Wall St? :-)

p.s. The actor portrayed in the story's cover page is not Russian, but from "former Yugoslavia". To be "technically correct".

I think its called bilderberg and they did signal risk reduction 6 months ago? Remember last week when you were wondering if stuff is overvalued well it is but now what stuff and for how long? I believe no one sees it anyhow like a gold and bonds rally! Risk isnt over yet but it is on the ropes?

Knukles, your one of the smartests MOFU here and you know all too well that the ZIO-Leader ship that OWNS the USA, knows all too well that the game was up in the 1970's when the USD went Bankrupt, and since then its PRINT to INFINITY 'FIAT' ( money backed by nothing ), but then along came 2014 and the world after 40 years of being BULLIED by a SOCIOPATHIC worlds policeman, that the USD was KAPUT.

The Leadership of USA in Tel-Aviv knew all too well, the problem is they weren't ready and its happening TOO FUCKING QUICK.

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I say they had a plan (SYRIA), to sell SAUDI OIL to EUROPE for Euro's to keep TEL-AVIV afloat, but PUTIN would have none of that, then they tried to steal UKRAINE, but PUTIN contained that theft.

Now with the USD collapsing the USA "LEADERSHIP" in TEL-AVIV will go full retard, they'll start using Al-Queda assets to steal planes and kill civilians in CHINA/RUSSIA to create a war.

BUT, the CHINA/RUSSIA are smart, they know to just play dumb and slow, once the USD collapses and the US-MIL/GOV can't make payroll on WORLDS-POLICEMAN, then the USA will be feared by nobody and every USA-COP in the world will run home with his tail tucked under his ass.

lose a bit of baggage and you are close to freegold thinking....yes the euro was made for the day the dollar died....yes the freeshitarmy of stooges will not work for love of country alone...no the zionist don't have any more say than anyone else who does not have gold....

Well, when the Mossad retirees do get home, you'd better hope you're nowhere around. How is it that stupid racist fucks like yourself feel entitled to make shit up and spew it all over the room? Be interesting to see how your tune changes when you're hung upside down in an alley with a hot cattle prod up your idiot ass.

Other then that it appears that the free flow of informations across the waters is making it clear that all wars are about the control of money and resources and have little to do with bogus assasinations of some far flung arch duke or poisen gas attacks. Germany was making a play for Mideast oil prior to WW1 just as the big navy's were switching from steam to oil and england was not going to have none of that shit so here we are...........

Everybody starts pulling out $100 BILLION all over the world it starts looking like real money.

Sure this is only a month of QE, and that is just the tip of the iceberg of what the Federal Reserve is really creating.

The Federal Reserve has sent $100 of TRILLIONS out the back door for years now to prop up EURO, ASIA, and South American Banks.

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The US Treasury is a circus act, ... but eventually when the ONLY buyer of US-DEBT is the FED the con-artist act cannot go on forever, I agree that monday will not see "BANK HOLIDAY" in USA, as the the police-state MUST be paid.

But eventually when the majority of the worlds country's are SELLING USD's, its going to drop, and drop, and drop, which means HYPER-INFLATION for the USA to buy shit, since they don't make shit.

Given that Hyper-Inflation in the USA has no begun, I suspect we still have lots of time to watch the US-TREASURY/WASH-DC circus act.

That said, ... Its clear that ZIO-TEL-AVIV is well aware their USD money-tree is about to DIE, and they're hell bent on STEALING THE EURO MONEY TREE.

Nope, I have just studied this shit for some 50+ years,... working my way up to Carrol Quigley ( historian CIA ), and working in US-MIL spec-ops my entire life, and intelligence, ... so I have seen many a die, and my time is near, and I have nothing to lose by telling the truth.

What's your story shithead?

I don't blame Zionists, I blame the Anglo-Saxson (Rhodes Scholars) for the fuck, ... Zio's are just the TOOLS in this trade,... the names on the kill list to be blamed should the OPERATION fail.

I tend to believe this..."so I have seen many a die, and my time is near, and I have nothing to lose by telling the truth".

A lot of posters here have all sorts of ideas about what might happen, but few can shed any light on why it may all be happening. That is why I try to find all your posts and read them. If we know who has the power, we can discern their motives and perhaps anticipate events and be half a step ahead of misery and untimely death.

Tens of millions have murdered all over the world the past 100 years. However, some escaped. Why? What did they see and experience that compelled them to leave the only life they knew? Everyone here knows some bad shit will be going down. Will it be 3 years or 30? Will you and your family prosper or die?

Can you quit your job, sell your house and all of your possessions? Say goodby to your extended family and friends? Pack your family up and leave? Where would you go?

Cash out your 401K and IRAs and buy PMs?

Many have done similar things over the past 100 years and have lived. Many, many others did not and suffered.

Yeah Yeah, trade in Renminbi and Ruble. The currencies that devalue 30% in a matter of weeks. Yeah, flight to safety. Definitely, the U.S is shaking in it's little boots. I'm so scared for my savings. These two shit hole countries are gonna rise up and trouble the U.S. hahah you guys are too funny, the U.S would win a war against both of those countries without even a shot fired. Since 2008, the Fed has added what 4 trillion of freshly printed M2? Have any of you bitches experienced 30% inflation like the chinks and ruskis? Stop bitching, you sound like a bunch of blind retards who can't analyze facts. You live in a free country and you're allowed to read whatever you want. Russia and China have mass censoring, arrests of political opposition, torture, etc. Former world chess champion Gary Kasparov was arrested and beaten for protesting. Khodorkovsky, Russia's visionary was jailed for 10 years for supporting political opposition. Bunch of retards in these comment sections, I swear.

Um, because the Fed has printed more money in the last 5 years than Russia's entire GDP for the last 30 and we experience, even by the most pessimistic calculations, maybe 3-5% inflation. Russia has experienced 30% inflation over the span of days in multiple times in the last decade. You think the Chinese will dump dollar and go to Ruble? You think other countries will follow suit?

Firearms will never be outlawed in the U.S. That was shot down in the Senate immediately and that's democratically controlled. The NDAA ok fine. Yes, but they didn't need to pass that to do that. They've always done that. I see people type all kinds of shit on zerohedge and not getting blackbagged. In china and russia you would have been. Mass surveillance, ok they do that everywhere. Mass censorship here? I don't think so. I can go on any website, if you're stupid enough to get your news from the TV, that's your problem. Yes, the U.S is not perfect but to "worship" Putin and all of these 3rd world piece of shit countries and pretend like the U.S can "learn" from them is just blind stupidity.

The fed prints money and it distorts emerging markets. That is why there currencies are more volatile. This is exactly why they are distancig themselves from the dollar. Dont be naive. Just wait untill they DO outlaw guns to conform to te trans-pacific-partnership.

You are trying to talk in good faith to some folks that I strongly feel are not independent posters, but rather, they have some kind of, shall we say, interest, in posting here. We never hear from these people on other threads, and then they crawl out to defend the sparkling shining wonderful USA?

Oh My God!!! Hahahah! So in your opinion, which I'm sure you think is educated and informed, there is no one who would defend the USA especially when it's being bashed by some RT paid bullshit propoganda. Motherfuckers you don't know what Russia is, I was born there and I am one of the luckiest motherfucker alive to have been naturalized by the US. I will lick this countries ass and polish its balls any day before hearing some ignorant mentally fucks like you bad mouthing this country and praising a murderer Vlad Putin. Yeah I'm being paid. You're right. Good for you, fucking genius. And your 4 up votes, bunch of Einsteins the lot of you.

"Putin Killer"? LOLAny U.S. president hands the blood to the elbow, as a butcher, compared with Putin. By the way, all the victims in Kiev - is also blood on the hands of U.S. President, not the President of Russia.

Of course, in the world there are not a few bastards who were born in Russia. And also in the world there are many good people who born in the U.S. But you personally, certainly do not from the second category.

Why in every your phrase, so many arrows down? You are a WH troll? You are should to write these nonsense, because it's your job and you need a money to feed a family? Or you like, when your interlocutors consider you an idiot?